I’m a reporter with 25-plus years experience writing about, and working in, the auto industry. After a journalism degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where I was a Morehead Scholar, I started out with the dearly departed Nashville Banner, an evening newspaper. My beat included GM’s Saturn Corp. in then-rural Spring Hill, Tenn. when the factory was still just a hole in the ground, plus the giant Nissan factory nearby. That turned into a post at Automotive News, the leading auto industry trade paper, as a one-man New York City bureau, covering European luxury brands, Wall Street, publicly traded dealer groups, retail auto finance and monthly auto sales. A four-year stint as market research and corporate strategy manager at Mercedes-Benz USA gave me an insider’s perspective. More recently, my freelance assignments have included Advertising Age, Automotive News, AutoWeek, Bankrate.com, Businessweek.com, CBS Interactive, The Financialist by Credit Suisse, ForbesAutos.com and Forbes.com. I am also Senior Editor for Auto Finance News in New York.

The big Japanese brands have gotten most of the headlines, especially Toyota, since Toyota has a recent history with a mishandled recall over “sticky accelerator pedals” and so-called unintended acceleration.

Toyota is also in the hot seat relatively speaking, because Toyota has a nice problem to have. That is, despite its recent history, quality problems still come as a surprise for the admired Toyota brand. Toyota’s brand loyalty took a hit in 2011 because the Japanese earthquake and tsunami created an inventory shortage. But Toyota and other Japanese brands rebounded in 2012, according to R.L. Polk & Co.

For the airbag recall, the big picture is that Japanese supplier Takata Corp. officially notified the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration yesterday, April 11, of a potential defect in certain passenger-side airbag components that were produced from 2000 to 2002 that can cause “over-aggressive combustion.” In turn, that can rupture the inflator.

NHTSA phrased the problem less delicately. If the inflator ruptures when the airbag goes off, that can cause, “metal fragments striking and potentially seriously injuring the passenger seat occupant or other occupants.”

The “propellant” in an airbag amounts to a small amount, a “wafer” of explosive. When it goes off, it inflates the airbag in the blink of an eye in a front-end collision. “Side-curtain” airbags inflate in case of a rollover, to cushion passengers and keep them inside the vehicle.

Source: NHTSA

Don’t be fooled. Those commercials where an airbag lazily balloons into a nice, cushy pillow and the crash-test dummy slowly leans into it for what looks like a nice nap are filmed in super-duper slow motion. In reality an airbag going off is like being punched hard in the face. If you’re wearing glasses you can get a cut across the bridge of your nose. If you’re sitting too close, they can even be fatal.

The point of airbags is that even if they’re forceful, they’re designed to be a big improvement over hitting your head on the steering wheel, the dashboard or the windshield.

Takata said in its notice to NHTSA it is aware of no injuries connected with the suspect parts. The supplier said it is aware of six incidents “in the field” – four in the United States and two in Japan, plus another six in Japan that occurred in salvage yards.

Past experience shows that the long-term effect on brand reputations will probably be pretty limited.

Unlike some other big recalls, so far at least there aren’t a lot of documented injuries, much less video of the alleged problem occurring. A hair-raising video of a car seemingly racing out of control threw a lot of fuel on the recent “unintended acceleration” disaster.

Additional factors are likely to mute the impact of the airbag situation. The cars in question are now around 10 years old or older. A lot of brands are affected, not just one. The problem appears to be with a single supplier that’s not a household name. And as big as the numbers sound – according to press reports more than 3 million cars are affected worldwide – the numbers in the United States are only a subset of that.

Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. said yesterday it would recall about 170,000 vehicles, but it said it might have to inspect as many as 510,000 vehicles to verify whether they had the suspect parts. The company said the vehicles involved include certain Toyota Corolla, Corolla Matrix, Sequoia, and Tundra, and Lexus SC 430 models manufactured from 2001 to 2003. Consumers can check with Toyota for details.

American Honda Motor Co. Inc. said it would recall approximately 426,000 Civics, model-year 2001 through 2003; about 43,000 CR-Vs vehicles from the 2002 and 2003 model years; plus about 92,000 Odyssey minivans from the 2002 model year in the United States, to replace the passenger front airbag inflator. Consumers can check with Honda for details.

The other companies were still scrambling to determine exactly how many vehicles and which models would be affected.

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